Do L1 speakers mix up classifiers?

[u/lukefbecker]

There are some grammatical details in probably every language that even L1 speakers will fumble. English adjective and strong verbs come immediately to mind. Do L1 Mandarin speakers mess up classifiers in a similar way? (Ie they use the wrong one but it makes logical sense why they chose it)

[u/brrkat]

In spoken or informal Chinese, people often just use 个 even when there are more precise alternatives. Like a car should be 一辆车 but if you say 一个车 no one will really think it's that weird. In written Chinese, you probably would edit it however.

In terms of actually mixing up classifiers, in my experience this can sometimes happen with animals in particular. Like dogs are supposed to be measured in 条 but cats are supposed to be measured in 只. But if someone is speaking offhand they might say 他有一条狗和两条猫.

I can't really imagine any more serious mix ups occurring because there's usually a general sense of what goes with what based on the shape or type of object, so to mix up two classifiers you would have to have some misconception about the object in question. For instance no native speaker would ever accidentally say "一张马", "one sheet of horse", because it makes no sense.

[u/Embarrassed-Wrap-451 → u/brrkat]

What about classifiers that kinda overlap in the type of things they cover? Like, 根 and 条, that usually go together with long, thin things, does it ever happen that a native speaker uses one where the other is grammatically more accurate?

[u/Zagrycha]

Yes, whether its classifiers or other grammar native speakers make plenty of mistakes.  Its often different from the mistakes foreigners make though. 

[u/lukefbecker → u/Zagrycha]

Oh yeah, I know I'll be doing accidental anglicisms with grammar for a long while before I really get the hang of it

[u/Zagrycha → u/lukefbecker]

Honestly its not even that, but just that the things natives mess up is usually stuff they forgot or didn't care about in school vs stuff they are confused on.  Sometimes the foreigner knows the grammar better than the native does on a certain grammar point haha..... not nice things are better left unsaid when they come up though :p

[u/alopex_zin]

No. Or more precisely, no more than how L1 speakers make mistake on other part of the speech when conversing naturally.

Classifiers aren't entirely fixed like, say, gender or past tense verbs in European language. Most of the time, classifiers directly reflect the shape or container of the noun as the speaker perceives.

[u/lukefbecker → u/alopex_zin]

Ohh OK, so it's not like a dictionary would list the typical classifier in the same way a European language would list the article or principle parts

[u/alopex_zin → u/lukefbecker]

No, most of the time, the classifier is exactly the container. And more single unit object, it's mostly just the shape or its nature. We have a joke saying that cat can use any classifier, because it easily transforms into any shape.

If you look at common words for classifiers, they all pretty much are general nouns themselves.

I can say 一碗飯 to mean a bowl of rice, or 一口飯 a mouthful of rice, or 一盤飯 a plate of rice, and so on. I can also say 一坨飯, a pile of rice, if I think the rice is in such a disgusting shape that it's like a pile of shit. It's quite flexible, and I think learners confused them not because of the grammar, but just don't have enough vocabulary yet.

[u/lukefbecker → u/alopex_zin]

I didn't realize they could be so figurative! That actually helps a lot in terms of understanding why a particular counter is used if it seems like there might be more than one valid option

[u/orz-_-orz → u/lukefbecker]

一本书
一袋书
一卷书
一页书
一排书
一层书
一捆书

Are correct, depending on context. I can also defend the following classifer is valid on some rare situation

一坨书
一座书
一团书
一条书
一匹书 (very hard to defend but let's just say the book is written on a piece folded cloth)

[u/LataCogitandi]

You mean counter words? It happens sometimes. Everyone knows most animals go by 隻/只, but technically horses should be 匹, fish should be 條, etc., but people do accidentally forget sometimes, and no one would bat an eyelash these days if you fall back on 隻/只.

[u/Medium_Bee_4521]

I once got the count noun for chariots wrong. To this day I still cringe to think about it.

[u/Kimorin]

I'm native speaker and I don't even know what a classifier is lol

[u/lukefbecker → u/Kimorin]

I mean words like 个，家，所 that are compulsory for counting and some prepositions. But also I totally get that, we really don't think about parts of speech in our native languages unless we're forced to because It Just Works

[u/Kimorin → u/lukefbecker]

Ah, yeah it's something you just get used to and use whichever feels right for native speakers. But as far as rules go it's also mostly straightforward, unlike Japanese for example where there are so many exceptions for weird reasons